Histories

William Ansley

From the HISTORY OF ONTARIO COUNTY; compiled by Lewis Cass Aldrich; edited by George S. Conover; 1893.

William Ansley was born in Massachusetts in 1773, removed with his parents to Pennsylvania when about four years old, was educated and reared a farmer.

In 1792, he in company with Powel Carpenter walked from Lackawanna county, Pa., with nothing but the clothes they wore, and their axes on their shoulders, settled together in Ontario county, N. Y., on the pre-emption line, five miles southwest of Geneva.

Geneva then contained one frame and some half dozen log houses. ...

In 1794 William Ansley married Esther Witter and they had ten children. His first wife died in 1817.

For his second wife he married Margaret (Sayre) Gramesly. They had six children: Alanson, Margaret, Matilda, James, Marcus, and Marvin. Alanson, Margaret and Marcus are still living.

Marcus occupies the old homestead, which was built and opened as a country hotel in 1794, and used for that for forty years. It still stands firm and solid, and promises all right for years to come.

William Ansley died in 1840, and his wife in 1865.


From p.129 of the Ephraim Killam manuscript (1887), an account of early life in the Paupack settlement:

William Ansley, the eldest of [John Ansley's] sons settled in New York State, in that part formerly called the Lake County...

He was reported to be very rich. ... We remember his visiting the Settlement once, coming in style with a fine pair of horses and close carriage or coach. On that occasion his wife and one son and daughter were with him, and it created quite a sensation among the people in the Settlement.

But in their visits they knew no distinction as to rich or poor, visiting their poorer relatives as well as those in better financial circumstances.